#devilmovie

I was not expecting this to be my first movie. I had another movie planned today, but it was just too damn long. Not that I don't like long movies, but it was pretty beautiful out today and the wife and dog won out on a lot of my time today.

Then of course, I'm a giant wrestling geek and tonight was a big WWE show...So that took up 7:30pm to 11:00pm...Yes - a wrestling geek.

So that lead me to do some quick Netflix queue searching and I saw that this was an hour shorter than my original selection. So here we are.

Now - on to the actual movie itself. If you don't know, Devil is about five people being stuck in an elevator - and one of them is the Devil.

But who?

It's from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan. He didn't write it or direct it, but he did produce it and the screenplay is based on his story. It's billed as the first of "The Night Chronicles" basically a series of movies Shyamalan is producing.

This was in 2010. I'm pretty sure there hasn't been another Night Chronicle yet. There are no "stars" in it even though there are familiar faces. I am sure the budget was low, and it did make $33 million in the US and $66 million worldwide. It had to have made money - but I guess not enough to have a followup yet...I think.

Overall, the movie was pretty good. I enjoyed the mystery and there were moments where I was afraid of what was going to come next.

The mystery's payoff?

Pretty good. It somewhat went where I was thinking - not that I guessed - but still had some surprises.

Not the greatest movie, but worth 80 minutes of my life.

This movie wasn't even on my mind up until I hit play, but that is why I am so happy about doing this movie month. It's going to force me to finally see a bunch of movies I've been waiting to - and allow me to see some movies that I've had some interest in but probably never would.

1 hour 20 minutes

Rated PG-13 (Violence and Disturbing Images, Thematic Material and Some Language Including Sexual References)

Directed by John Erick Dowdle

Starring Chris Messina, Bojana Novakovic, Bokeem Woodbine, Logan Marshall-Green, Jenny O'Hara, Geoffrey Arend, and Jacob Vargas

1.5 out of 4 stars

THIS IS A 2010 MOVIE JUST FYI.

Devil just tries too hard. I do like this idea and I won't blame M. Night Shyamalan (HE DID NOT DIRECT THIS by the way the annoying trailer for the movie gave people the idea that he did but he just thought up of the story and I believe co-produced it too). Sure it's a little ridiculous. Five people trapped in an elevator and one's the devil AHHHH!!!!!! This could have been handled a lot better but director John Erick Dowdle (Quarantine) totally screws it up. It's just too much.

What do I mean by too much? I mean that Devil acts like it's never seen a horror movie before. Why are so many horror films these days convinced that over-the-top suspense music will absolutely terrify the audience? There's no problem having music of course. Look at Scream 4 or any other Wes Craven film. They're obsessed with music. The Scream franchise, however, is only fifty percent focused on trying to scare the audience. Devil on the other hand isn't part comedy and the music is so overdone it isn't scary at all. Just make the music creepy! Films like A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Sixth Sense, and The Mothman Prophecies are great examples of how you can use music to scare the daylights out of an audience. There's a reason so many of us are liking cinema verite style horror films like Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project. There's no over-the-top music!

The music isn't the only thing that makes Devil stink. There are a few jumpy parts and the rough PG-13 rating adds a few cool gruesome scenes but it's just too silly. The Jacob Vargas character makes the movie so unintentionally funny. He narrates parts of the story and talks about the devil and and how he can take human form on earth and blah blah and it just doesn't work. The other problem with Devil is that as a mystery genre it does a terrible job of keeping us guessing who the devil is out of the five people. It's an incomprehensible and disorganized mess. The ending also goes too nice. Other Shyamalan films like The Sixth Sense and Signs and Unbreakable went all nice at the end but they handled it better.